The Mountain God's Protection, Breaking Through to Foundation Establishment

"Rise—!!!"

With Chu Bai's furious roar, five-colored spiritual light surged from the White Jade Altar at the center of the Underground Palace like a galactic waterfall flowing backward, pouring wildly into the white jade throne that had stood empty for so long.

At that moment, the spiritual power of over a thousand cultivators at Qi Refining Perfection, combined with the Earthly Treasure [dark-yellow Wu-earth essence], finally triggered a qualitative transformation deep within the dying earth vein.

Outside, heaven and earth changed color.

At the foot of Ridge Vein Mountain, which had been collapsing, the earth abruptly ceased its teeth-grinding tremors. In their place came a deeper, grander rhythm.

It was as though an ancient heart, asleep for ten thousand years, had been forcibly flooded with scalding blood and begun to beat again.

Thump!

A muffled boom, like the pulse of the earth, exploded directly in the depths of everyone's soul.

Then, beneath the fervent gazes of Xia Xing and the others, and within the stunned perception of the three deities outside, countless dark-gold boulders of immense weight rose from the ruins on their own.

They collided violently in midair, interlocking with precision. Accompanied by dazzling, dense, ocher divine light, they formed a majestic body capable of holding up the heavens at the very edge of the turbulent void.

It was a stone giant a hundred zhang tall.

A jagged stone crown rested on its head, and a towering mountain weighed upon its back. Its eyes were formed from two enormous gold-essence crystals, now blazing with spirit flames.

Every inch of its skin bore ancient cloud patterns—the marks of the heavenly Dao left when Azure Earth bestowed Edict Investiture upon an Orthodox God. They carried an inviolable majesty.

This was one of the Orthodox Gods of this world—the [Ridge Vein Mountain